Para-Pedagogical
by PencilMonkeyGaiden
Summary: A new pupil tries to spark conflict in class. In hindsight, he really shouldn't have tried to cause trouble in Miss Susan's classroom.


**Para-Pedagogical**

**Summary:**  
A new pupil tries to spark conflict in class. In hindsight, he really shouldn't have tried to cause trouble in Miss Susan's classroom.

**Chapter I**

When Susan heard a hesitant knock, she turned to face the door to her classroom. She kept a wary eye on a few of the more unruly pupils in her class, as she called out a greeting. Some students were simply slow learners, and there were often one or two of the tumultuous souls in her class who hadn't yet learned the basic lessons... such as the lesson about assuming that they'd be able to sneak anything past her, when it looked as though her attention was distracted – i.e. they couldn't, and they shouldn't, but if they _did_, they'd soon wish they hadn't.

"Enter."

The door opened, revealing the slightly anxious face of another PRT employee, Dr. Yamada.

"Ah... G-good afternoon, Susan. I hope I'm not interrupting anything? It's just that I, ah... I'd heard you'd made a lot of progress with one of our new patients...?"

"You mean Riley?" Susan smiled a little at the thought of the lively young girl. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the slight movements as several of her students shuddered, seeing her smile.

"Yes, she's been a model student, so far."

Well... Almost a model student. There had been that minor incident with Sophia Hess, of course, but she'd managed to get both of the girls to apologize to each other, and then clean up the mess on the floor... And on the walls, and on the ceiling of the hallway outside.

Dr. Yamada's smile grew a little larger, just a bit more sincere. "That's excellent news! I'm very glad to hear it."

The woman began to fidget, again. "Um... I was wondering if, ah... Since you've made such great strides with one member of that particular... group... You might be willing to, erm... take on one more...?"

Susan arched an eyebrow. "Which one did you have in mind?"

Dr. Yamada stepped back from the doorway, and the sound of frantic whispering could be heard from the doorway.

Then, a couple of black-clad PRT troopers appeared, forcing a man wrapped in a straight-jacket and heavy chains into the room. They gave him a strong shove in the back, their body language conveying a mingled urge to push the man hard enough that he'd trip and fall, and an equally strong desire to avoid having to help the man get medical assistance, if he actually hurt himself. They recoiled quickly, clearly regretting the fact that they had to touch him to toss him around.

Susan recognized the bearded man quite readily. "Hello, Jacob."

The man staggered upright, striking a pose designed to make him look perfectly at ease and in control of the situation, pesky little details like straight-jackets and armed guards notwithstanding.

His face lit up with the beginnings of a cheerful, yet somewhat pained smile. (Most likely, he was aiming for "rakish", but the heavy shackles around his ankles seemed to be cramping his style, in addition to the solid effort they were making in clamping his legs.)

Then, he got a proper look at Susan, and promptly blanched. His smirk faded into a grimace, making his pale face look positively ghastly. His lower lip wobbled as he struggled to speak.

Susan glanced at the doorway, making eye contact with Dr. Yamada. She briefly considered arguing against this decision, but the exhausted look of sheer desperation in the therapist's eyes made her change her mind.

However, before she gave in, she shot a stern look at Dr. Yamada and the troopers. "He will _not_ be in the same class as Riley."

All the people clustered in the hallway outside the door began nodding emphatically, heads bobbing in unison like a bundle of plastic toys on a car's dashboard.

"Thank, you, Susan!" Dr. Yamada cried, before the door slammed shut with great haste.

Susan went through the simple efforts of having her new pupil introduce himself to the rest of the class, and then showed him to a vacant seat.

Jacob seemed to have recovered some of his bluster, at this point. He turned in his chair to face the pupil next to him.

"Why, hello there," he grinned. "Scion, I presume?"

The golden figure in the neighbouring seat said nothing, simply nodding in response.

"Y'know, I've always wanted to meet you," Jacob went on. "I have some... suggestions..."

Susan was about to remind them not to speak in class without putting their finger up first, when she noticed another pupil who actually _did_ have their hand raised in the air, even waving a little to catch her attention.

She turned towards the huge pseudo-reptilian figure. "Yes, Leviathan?"

Water droplets rose off the gargantuan creature's skin, merging to form a large globule of floating liquid. The blob of water immediately reshaped itself into a string of letters, hovering above the being's four-eyed head like a crude cartoon speech bubble.

I NEED TO BE EXCUSED

A loud cry rang out from the back of the class. "_You can never be excused, you homicidal monster!_"

Susan planted her fists on her hips, glancing towards the student who'd shouted. "David? What have I taught you about the difference between using your _indoor_ voice and _outdoor_ voice?"

The green-clad figure slumped, sinking back down into his seat. "...No shouting in the classroom," he recited, mumbling the words. "Sorry, miss."

Susan gave a curt nod, and returned her attention to the biggest pupil in the room.

"So, Leviathan. You were asking to be excused," she prompted. "I presume you meant that you need to be excused from the classroom?"

The gigantic creature nodded.

YES, MISS

I NEED TO GO TO THE BATHROOM, MISS

"Is that so?" Susan narrowed her eyes. "And why do you need to do that? Are you experiencing a sudden, hitherto undiscovered biological urge to use the bathroom for its intended purpose? Or are you simply planning some foolhardy shenanigans involving the water faucets?"

The immense Endbringer towered over her for several long seconds. Then, it began to fidget, and hunched over its reinforced, oversized desk. It had no real face, but still seemed slightly shameful and mildly abashed, somehow. When the watery sky-writing reshaped into different words, the font was a fair bit smaller and more timid than before.

SORRY, MISS

UM

I DON'T NEED TO BE EXCUSED, AFTER ALL

Susan glanced towards the pupil standing by the blackboard. "Bradley? I do hope you're not making silly faces at Leviathan."

Bradley schooled his features back into a mostly normal expression. "Uh... Who, me? N-no, miss!"

"Very good. Since you're not wasting your time with tomfoolery, perhaps you'll have time to finish the task I assigned you?"

The tall, broad-shouldered man spun round and raised a brawny arm, peppered with tattoos. His skin rippled eerily; probably just the metal hooks inside his body, trembling with nervousness. The chalk in his hand scritched across the blackboard, as he continued to write. The board was already halfway covered with numerous repetitions of two lines, scrawled over and over:

_Using the N-word about others is hurtful, and I should not do so._

_If I did, people might use the __other__ N-word about __me__, which I wouldn't want to happen, either._

When Susan turned the focus of her attention back to the rest of the pupils in her classroom, she noticed a commotion by one of the desks. She strode over to the source of the disturbance, and fixed a stern glare on one of the young women in the class.

"Prudence?" Susan said. "What is that you're hiding under the desk?"

The Asian-looking woman glared up at her. "I _hate_ that name! That's not who I am, anymore! I'm _Bakuda!_"

Susan folded her arms, and arched an eyebrow.

Prudence shrank back in her seat, looking down at her desk. "I mean, uh... I don't like being called that name, miss."

"Very well... _Bakuda_," Susan sighed. "Now, what do you have under your desk?"

Face brightening in a pleased smile, Prudence lifted her hands from where she'd kept them under the desk. She stretched her arms out towards Susan, showing off the heavy protective gloves she was wearing. In her cupped palms lay a small lump of an odd chartreuse mineral, glowing and shimmering. The rock's aura of ominous yellow-green luminosity seemed to wax and wane, pulsing like a heartbeat.

"Ain't it _gorgeous?_" Prudence giggled. "It's a forty-gram nugget of pure cataclysmium! One of the elements that's so far up in the periodic system, they haven't even invented numbers that are high enough to label it, yet!"

"Very pretty." Susan pursed her lips. "Did you bring enough for the whole class?"

"Huh?" Prudence looked confused. "But, I didn't-"

There was a subtle cough, coming from the direction of Jacob's desk.

Prudence's eyes flickered to the side, then focused on the rock again. "I mean, uh... This lump probably contains more cataclysmium than you could find in any three solar systems! No way there's enough to share it with these fu-"

Susan cleared her throat.

"Erm... W-with these fudgin' people, miss." Prudence's eyes gleamed with a manic intensity. "With this bad boy, I can build a bomb big enough to blow up whole _hemi-spheres_."

"No, you most certainly will not." Susan held out her hand. "No toys in class. Give it to me, please."

"Aww, but _miss!_" Prudence clutched the glowing rock to her chest, even after her shirt began to smoulder from the contact.

Eventually, she relented, handing the nugget to Susan with great reluctance.

"Thank you, Bakuda." Susan gingerly took the rock, quickly dumping it in a lead-lined shoebox that she kept in the bottom drawer of the teacher's desk for just such occasions.

"You will get it back at the end of the day, if you manage to behave and not cause any more trouble," she reassured the young woman.

(Privately, Susan suspected that such an outcome was unlikely. Prudence was already shooting covetous sidelong looks at anything else in the classroom that she might be able to use as the basis for another explosive device: Sticks of chalk, little gum erasers at the ends of pencils, the _rest_ of the pencils...)

"Now, if _you_ didn't bring the cataclysmium to class..."

Prudence looked startled, glancing briefly towards the neighbouring desk. "W-what? No, that's-"

"...I can't help but wonder where it came from." Susan turned to face the pupil sitting at the desk next to Prudence. "Do _you_ know where the cataclysmium might have come from, Zion?"

The tall golden man shuffled awkwardly in his seat, not looking her in the eyes.

"Zion? Please look at me when I'm talking to you. Do you remember the rules about passing notes, or snacks, or extremely volatile and dangerous materials, to other pupils in class?"

"**Yes, miss.**" Zion fidgeted, sheepishly rubbing the back of his head. "**The rule is "don't do it", miss. Sorry, miss.**"

"Then if you know the rules, what was the reason you decided to give unstable isotopes to your classmate?" Susan tapped her foot. "Did someone put you up to it?"

Zion wilted under the intensity of her gaze, and began to sweat. For someone like him, this manifested itself as something akin to viscous droplets of molten sunlight, beading on his forehead and trickling down his temples.

"**...She needed worthy components?**"

Susan turned her head again, glancing further to the side, towards the pupil sitting on the far side of Zion.

Jacob sat upright in his seat, as straight-backed and polite as he was able to sit while trapped by four different forms of physical restraints. He stared at the ceiling with an expression that, to an inexperienced observer, would no doubt appear completely innocent. To top it all off, he was even whistling to himself, quietly and tunelessly.

Susan narrowed her eyes. This newest addition to the class was going to require special care and attention, it seemed... and many long afternoons in the time-out corner.


End file.
